Pierre Gasly was one of the most consistently impressive drivers over the final races of last year. That said, his outgoing team mate beat him to Alpine’s best result of the season.
Alpine began the year with the slowest car on the grid but gradually recovered to join the midfielders scrapping for the lower half of the points positions. At the beginning of the season, when points were almost impossible to come by, Gasly usually trailled behind Esteban Ocon, though in Shanghai he could point to the fact his team mate got their new, lighter floor first.Eventually Alpine managed to breach the top 10. Gasly’s first point came in Monaco where he survived a careless first-lap lunge from Ocon to come in 10th. That began a brief spell of points finishes including ninth in Montreal and Catalunya, plus 10th at the Red Bull Ring, all taken ahead of Ocon, though in Canada the team ordered the pair to swap places.
The balance of power ebbed and flowed between the two drivers as the season passed its halfway point. Gasly was in inspired form at Zandvoort, a track which seems to bring out the best in him, where he came ninth, and he picked up another point in Mexico. However he followed his team mate home at Spa, Monza and Singapore.
Pierre Gasly
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 3 | 20 (x2) |
| GP finish | 3 | 20 |
| Points | 42 | |
Life got more interesting for the Alpine drivers over the final fly-away races where the team finally wrung some performance from the A524. Gasly qualified a fine sixth at Austin but a slow pit stop and a penalty for passing Alexander Albon off-track left him out of the points.
Gasly played second fiddle when Alpine scored by far their best result of the year at Interlagos, coming in third behind Ocon. He started nine places behind his team mate after Ocon cheekily passed him at Juncao in qualifying, costing him a chance to improve his lap time.
But while Alpine prepared to drop the Haas-bound Ocon one race early, Gasly continued to deliver strong results. Fifth place in Qatar and seventh in Abu Dhabi helped cement the team’s sixth place in the constructors’ championship.
He might have added another strong finish in Las Vegas, where he qualified a superb third but retired with a power unit problem. Other technical failures in Jeddah (gearbox), Silverstone (gearbox again) and the Hungaroring (hydraulics) meant Gasly lost more to car problems than most drivers, though he deserves credit for not causing any collisions himself. He heads into the new season having established himself as team leader at Alpine and arguably in the best form of his F1 career so far.
RaceFans’ driver rankings are based partly on the scores awarded to drivers for their performances in each round as well as other factors.
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Riccard
28th January 2025, 8:22
Gasly and Ocon’s seasons might have been so different without that Monaco crash and the decision to stick with Gasly.
I wonder whether it all came from that moment, or if the writing was already on the wall and that simply sealed it?
Since that moment – since knowing his position was secure – Gasly’s form was excellent.
Jere (@jerejj)
28th January 2025, 8:25
The Monaco incident indeed was what effectively sealed Ocon’s departure, if anything, as he was already more or less set to leave the team by that point based on what he said when his departure became official.
El Pollo Loco
28th January 2025, 14:37
Indeed. Ocon started the season 5-0 in quali and then after Monaco, Gasly magically starts doing much better. Yet Ocon still beat Gasly on balance and also had the higher top result (P2 vs P3). So, I fail to see what makes Gasly P8 and Ocon P11.
Anyway, I find it amusing that are only three drivers I really dislike and Alpine managed to have two of them w/those being the two I dislike the most.
David BR (@david-br)
28th January 2025, 15:27
Intriguing. Can you explain ‘magically’?
El Pollo Loco
28th January 2025, 22:19
Was it really unclear? Drive A = undefeated in quali against driver B through first quarter of the season. After team announces Driver A is being dropped, Driver B suddenly begins beating him 80% of the time.
As for Hamilton, he smashed George in 2023 yet people say both 2022 and 2024 were examples of the team somehow trying to undermine him. It doesn’t make sense. I still rate Lewis highly. I just don’t buy the excuse that George was being favored. I do buy the idea that Lewis gets his chin and motivation down easily. I do find it unfair and silly to judge Hamilton at 40 as if a poor season today somehow discredits what he’s done in the past.
With how unprofessional Alpine has shown itself to be in how they handle internal matters and their lack of resources compared to Mercedes, it’s a lot more believable in EO’s case that internal priorities impacted driver balance.
David BR (@david-br)
29th January 2025, 12:05
Well thanks for revealing precisely what I imagined! Team bias against an outgoing driver is clear and obviously motivated – except when it’s Hamilton in 2024, then it’s down to him, The team weren’t favouring GR in 2022 or 2023, obviously: far more a case of Hamilton favouring the team, attempting to help resolve the design flaws rather than seeing his primary task as beating Russell. Russell, the opposite. Entirely logical from both drivers: Hamilton wanted to have a winning car again, Russell was trying to prove he was as fast as or faster than Hamilton. 2024, though, showed all the signs of Hamilton being levered out. Lack of motivation? Maybe but no different to Alonso’s own dip when the AM car’s problems became abundantly evident. But there was far more at work, a lot of subtle negative signals from the team – if you see the team’s reaction to his Silverstone win and then compare to Russell’s subsequent ‘win’ at Spa, later deleted by FIA, the difference is striking. No blame to the team who had been ditched for Ferrari for producing a relatively poor car, but clearly those reactions reflect a deteriorated relationship. Clearly you don’t need explaining how team bias might manifest in driver performance as you identified it in the case of Gasly and Ocon. Just makes absolutely no sense to conclude that Hamilton/Russell can’t be measured in the same way.
El Pollo Loco
29th January 2025, 16:47
Way to twist my words to conveniently meet your narrative. Well done. The difference here is one of has a dog in the game and the other doesn’t.
David BR (@david-br)
28th January 2025, 15:28
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
28th January 2025, 19:47
Without getting in the specifics of this case or what the other person meant, it’s well known that when a driver is about to leave the team he’s given less updates, is shut out of some meetings about technical stuff and pretty much always underperforms, see hamilton this season, ricciardo in 2018 after the decision to leave, vettel in 2014, 2020, I would say sainz this year was the exception.
juan fanger (@juan-fanger)
28th January 2025, 20:54
Ocon said that his car was over half a second slower than Gasly’s by the end of the year. How much of that is true may never be known outside certain members of the team, but it certainly shows how Ocon felt about then not having equal equipment.
David BR (@david-br)
28th January 2025, 21:49
@esploratore1 I agree, but that explanation seems to apply to anyone but Hamilton for some reason with lots of posters here (El Pollo Loco, I don’t remember) asserting that he’s in decline on the evidence of the 2024 season.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
28th January 2025, 8:29
“I started to beat him, he didn’t like it”
Certainly this year Gasly had the better of Ocon who uncharacteristically dipped in form quite badly.
Hopefully Ocon will rebound at Haas and those two will continue fighting next year !
HAL
28th January 2025, 11:42
I don’t know if it’s uncharacteristic for Ocon, tbh. I’m too lazy to dig into statistics, but it feels to me Ocon has always been very fast for a part of the season and then dimmed for another part…. 2023 was not so different, Gasly was slightly behind for the first part of the season and then was ahead for the last 2/3.
Having said that, I agree that the end of the season when Ocon was very far from Gasly in qualy was not normal and likely linked to his departure…
Robert Williams (@weiliwen)
28th January 2025, 12:57
I admit I’m pleased with this ranking; I’m one of the few folks who actually LIKE Pierre Gasly, so I was pleased that he improved over the course of the season. With the potential issue between Doohan and Colapinto, it looks like another season of off-track drama at Alpine.
El Pollo Loco
28th January 2025, 14:40
His most impressive stat was being the only driver in F1 to not cost his team a dime in crash damage, especially since he’s usually been someone to have at least a couple silly incidents each season. That was pretty good.
Robert Williams (@weiliwen)
28th January 2025, 15:26
AND, he arguably made the team millions by his good finishes near the end of the season, by moving the team’s placement.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
29th January 2025, 9:01
I like Gasly as well. I think he’s a little underrated although this ranking I think is fair. On his day, and on the right circuit he can be impressive.
Leo B
29th January 2025, 16:50
I wish he would dispense with that pre-race stuff he does on the grid with catching golf balls and the rest of it. He does it just for the cameras.